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John turned and swept his rifle over the terrain. There were bumpy sensor nodes, kilometers of conduits, and a dozen gaping canyons in the hull. A legion of Covenant warriors could hide in this mess.
No enemy contact. Nothing on his motion sensors, either.
He stepped close to the main-drive conduit and examined the hole. The pipe was five meters across and still red hot, even though Cortana had shut it down three minutes ago. The hole was round, a three-meter-wide gap, with ragged edges that all pointed inward.
"If that was from a plasma strike," Grace said, "the metal would have been boiled away. If it was from an impact, the edges would be scraped on one side, compacted on the other. This hole was deliberately made."
"Eyes sharp," John said. "We have company. My guess is camouflaged Elites. Maybe some of the original crew still alive. Blue-Three, -Four, and -Five—move out."
"Roger," Will replied.
Anton emerged from the dropship hefting an arc welder, while Will and Li maneuvered the three-by-three-meter hull plates.
"Fred and Grace, you're on the welders," John ordered. "An-
222 HALO: FIRST STRIKE
ton, post on top of the dropship. Li, you're at three o'clock. Will at nine. I'll take the six."
Blue acknowledgment lights winked on.
John helped Fred and Grace set the plates in position. Grace and Fred fired up the arc welder, and pinpoints of metal liquefied beneath their tips. A shower of sparks swirled around them in the evacuated environment like a swarm of fireflies.
"We're in position, Admiral," John reported. "ETA for repairs is two minutes."
"Roger, Chief," Admiral Whitcomb replied. Ionization made the channel flood with static. "When you're done, give the word and get secure—we'll be accelerating immediately."
"Yes, sir."
So far, so good, John thought. Just another minute or two.
A streamer of plasma appeared from nowhere. The tangled, crisscrossed Slipspace around them dropped the bolt of boiling fire fifty meters overhead; it moved port to starboard—and van?ished back into the void.
The COM shattered into white noise, and the motion sensors blurred... as did the active camouflage shielding of the six Elites who had been slowly—and until a moment ago imperceptibly— crawling toward their position.
"Enemy contacts!" John shouted.
He crouched behind the dome of a sensor node and opened fire. A hail of bullets caught the closest Elite dead-center in its chest. The gunfire punched through its shielding and then tore into its armor. It tumbled backward and spun off the hull.
In his peripheral vision John saw the silent muzzle flashes from his team. He glanced back; Fred and Grace hadn't moved. They stared at the beads of molten alloy under their arc welder's tip.
As if Fred could read his mind, he said, "I need another twenty seconds, Chief."
A volley of crystalline needles fired from one of the Elites peppered the sensor node. The Master Chief returned fire, but the Elite's camouflage kicked in and it faded from view.